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Be soft — don’t always go for a hard sell
22 Apr

SMPL, a customer of ours, had a 3rd party SEO ‘audit.’ To quote a section of the report from this terribly inexperienced agency:

“There are a few areas that could use some attention to improve usability and conversion.

I’m assuming your key conversion metric would be getting people to contact you. The contact form is an easier metric to track, but which you say is more valuable to you phone or contact form? When you land on the home page the most prominent call to action (button) should be your conversion metric. Right now the phone number is secondary and the contact link is buried in the menu and footer.”

This is where this agency’s inexperience shows. In fact, it reeks. It’s mistakes like these that can cost your business a lot financially.

For a service business, often your hard sell — aka bottom of the funnel (BOFU) offer — is normally a contact page. On the website in question, a link to it is posted everywhere and it’s tracked. However, soft sells — aka middle of the funnel (MOFU) offers — almost always have more clicks. Why? Think of it this way. When you meet a new person, do you give them your phone number right away? No! (Unless, well, um… yeah.) It’s very much like — nice to meet you… tell me more about yourself… Explore, explore, explore… Ok, now let’s meet/tango. Here’s my number!

So, what do you do instead? The two key elements to always have above the fold on your homepage are: ‘Who we are’ and ‘How we do what we do’ (process). On our customer’s website, ‘How it Works’ and ‘Meet SMPL’ are the two primary links. On those two important pages, ‘How it Works’ and ‘Meet SMPL’ are where they usher in the harder sell. In SMPL’s case, it’s ‘Request a free consultation.’ Right?

Let me show you an example of this in action (from the bottom up):

SMPL Website Data Visualization

Flow of the user: Home -> About Us -> Process -> Portfolio -> Contact. It’s easy and makes sense. It’s human. Could you imagine if all we had was a hard sell? It’s repulsive.

So, one thing I’d like you to consider when doing sitemaps and copy, is to always think about those two calls to action on the homepage: the soft sells to the exploratory pages. Then hit your harder sell on those exploratory pages.

BTW, SMPL has been killin’ it. In his own words (without edits):

“ill tell you this much, we’ve taken care of all the leads that have come in on the new site – and get every contract but 1 ….. its the busiest year on record, and the phone wont stop ringing … two new calls per week for the last three months straight. 32 projects on the “current board” 18 already completed … 50 total for this year .. thats the amount we did last year and its only april

the new site has honed in the “buyers” and everyone coming wants modern.”

I’d share the rest of this companies ‘audit,’ but it’s too painful and not worthy of our blog. Remember, the Internet is an investment. Don’t sell yourself short!

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Hubspot to WordPress Conversion
29 Oct

Replacing HubSpot with WordPress

Convert Hubspot to WordPress and save thousands of dollars. Everything from landing pages, calls to action, lead tracking, and more.

Don’t get me wrong – HubSpot is great software. They also have great training. I wouldn’t have gotten to this point without them. However, if you’re a WordPress person, HubSpot doesn’t cut it.  I prefer all of my content to be inside of one, self-hosted ecosystem.  Here I break down how I replaced HubSpot inside of WordPress for a fraction of the cost.

Blogging (free)

This is easy – WordPress is the best blogging platform.  You’ve got this covered.

Content Management System (free)

Again – easy. WordPress is an awesome CMS.  It’s also great for building robust websites.  Look at our portfolio, or Mojito Sites, they speak for themselves.

Landing Pages (free)

I’ve recently discovered WordPress Landing Pages, it’s free – and awesome.  The CEO of Inbound Now, the company who built Landing Pages, used to work for HubSpot.  He knows what he’s doing.

Features include A/B testing, and all of the analytics you need. It ties seamlessly into WP and Gravity Forms.  See it in action.

Instead of using Landing Pages, you can also build out your LP’s as standard pages. Just drop the menu and any distracting widgets.

Search Engine Optimization (free)

I use Ultimate SEO.  You can do your keyword research with Google Keyword Planner (requires AdWords account).  Also, WP is excellent with SEO.

Email Marketing and Autoresponders (paid)

The problem I have with most email marketing software is you pay for how many contacts you have, or you’re set on a monthly fee.  I’m more of a pay per use kind of guy, so I’m not forking out money when things are slow.  A lot of people recommend MailChimp.  It’s great, but it’s expensive.  A very good alternative is Campaign Monitor.  Their interface is insanely simple. Auto responders cost about 1 cent per email on the pay per use plan.  Much better compared to MailChimps 3 cents.  Campaign Monitor also integrates very well with Gravity Forms.

If you’re an agency, Campaign Monitor has an awesome program for managing your clients’ email campaigns.  You can set your own pricing, and they pay you the difference.

Calls to Action (free)

WordPress Calls to Action. I have not implemented this plugin, but if the quality is anything like Landing Pages, or Leads, it’ll be great.

Social Media (free)

BufferApp.  Super clean and super free. It works with Google+ and has an excellent Chrome extension.  The best part?  Don’t worry about scheduling your posts – it takes care of that for you.

Analytics (free)

Google Analytics.  Awesome.  Set up some goals for your desired conversion paths and you’re killin’ it.  Be sure to use the URL builder to really spruce up your results.

Lead Tracking (free)

WordPress Leads. Another nice piece of software from the boys from Inbound Now.  This thing is awesome and was the one thing I thought I was going to miss from HubSpot.  It integrates super well with Landing Pages and Gravity Forms.  It was almost too easy. See it in action.

CRM (free)

This is restricted to Gmail users only, but I absolutely love it.  We use Streak.  It’s super lightweight, and I can manage my pipelines with our entire organization. It’s also one less website to visit as it lives inside of Gmail.

Forms (paid)

I love Gravity Forms.  If you’re an agency, get the best package – because you can use it on all of your clients’ sites.  This plugin has made our lives a lot easier.  It also jives well with Campaign Monitor and Landing Pages.

Hosting (paid)

WP Engine.  The best WP hosts on the planet.  No longer do I wait up at night worrying I may get hacked. They do all of the WP updates, and daily backups.  Other awesome features include a staging server (perfect for building out new features), Git Integration and awesome user management.  Won’t build a WordPress site without it.

See how we saved a bundle?  It’s also nice to stay inside of WordPress.  We save money, and we like the software.  Win-win with no trade-offs. Leave comments below if you have any questions or suggestions.

Need help migrating to WordPress? Contact us.

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How to Compliment a Blog with Social Media
22 Feb

Social Media and Blogging

So you have written a blog about “XYZ”.  Now you want people to read it, but nobody did.  How do you get more traffic there?  Here are some simple tips for you engage a larger audience.

5 Quick Tips:

1. You’ve read Blogging Best Practices.

2. After you have written your blog, use the title of the blog in your social media push. These should be targeted keywords.

3. For every blog post, there should be Tweets, Facebook Posts, etc. for the next 3 days. 20 to 30 Tweets should be the norm.

4. If certain Tweets generate no traffic, try and re-tweet them at different times of the day.

5. You need analytics. If you’re not using Hubspot, I would recommend it. However, you can use something like bit.ly (for free) to shorten the URL to your blog, while giving you some analytics on different clicks.

EDIT (October 1, 2015): The CTA on this site was removed, as we migrated to a new design.

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The 3 Pillars for Inbound Marketing
13 Feb

Sales Funnel

1. Get Found

Getting found could be tricky, but the key to unlocking success is through content creation.  Tactics like blogging, social media marketing (Tweeting, Facebookin’, etc..) and search engine optimization play a large factor in the quantity and the quality of your traffic.

2. Convert

Now that you have visitor traffic heading to your site, you cannot waste your efforts.  The viewer needs to be buying or subscribing to something.  Capturing someone’s information is extremely important here.  If you are successful at capturing information, you have increased your likelihood of making a sale ten-fold.  The trick is to now create a nurturing campaign. What is that?

“Automatically trigger timed follow up emails based on your leads’ behaviour.”

Food for thought:  it takes approximately 5 to 6 exposures to a product before a prospect turns into a customer.  Knowing this, nurturing your prospects through email marketing is integral to your marketing efforts.

3. Analyze

For inbound marketing to be effective you need metrics and analytics on everything.  We use a combination of Hubspot, Google Analytics, Zopim, Call Tracker and Jetpack.  This might look like overkill, but as a marketing professional, you really can’t have enough metrics to help you get your job done effectively.

  • How did your leads find you?
  • Users interaction history
  • A/B testing of your landing pages
  • Entry and exit pages

 

EDIT (October 1, 2015): CTA’s were removed from this post, as we migrated to a new design.

 

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A N00b’s Intro to Inbound Marketing
12 Feb

What is inbound marketing?

What is Inbound Marketing?

We have had a lot of questions from our clients when we pitch inbound marketing strategies to them.   Inbound marketing seems like it’s really complex, but it really isn’t that hard; its more like a formula that takes years to perfect.  So what is Inbound Marketing?

“It’s marketing with a magnet, not a sledgehammer — marketing based on content that attracts and nurtures prospects, not spam that interrupts them.”

Unlike traditional marketing where customers found products by having marketers aggressively hammer ads in your face, inbound marketing takes a different approach.  This technique is based on 3 pillars:

  1. Get found
  2. Convert
  3. Analyze

EDIT (October 1, 2015): Due to a new site design, our former CTA’s were removed. S’all good.

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6 Blogging Rules Everyone Should Follow
11 Feb

Blogging got you down?

Alright, so you’ve decided to start blogging.  You have great ideas in your head, but have a hard time putting them on paper, after all how hard could it be?  It’s not,  follow these 6 rules and you’re sure to see success!

1. Keep it short

Your blog posts shouldn’t be longer then 300-400 words.   Nobody likes to read a Charles Dickens Novel. Nobody online at least!

2.  Tell a story, be interesting

Instead of blogging about your company and products, you should be writing about industry best practices and answering common customer questions about higher level product issues. This content will not only help increase search traffic but also drive better quality prospects to your business’ website.

3. Use 1 keyword in the title, and 1 in the body

When writing your blog, write a great title.  It should have 1 keyword, which is also mirrored in your body text.  This will boost your SEO reach, getting you a bigger audience.

4. Use Images

You need an image that is related to the article you are writing.  Ensure that this image is something people want to look at.

5. Make 1 major point in your blog, not multiple

Don’t confuse your readers…  If you have lots of stuff to say about a topic, break it up into multiple blogs.

 6. Add a call to action at the end of your blog

If you really know your stuff, it will resonate with your reader.   You already have their trust, why not make some money?  Creating effective calls to action is the key.  Some examples are:  ( Buy Now, Get your FREE Trial…)

 

EDIT (October 1, 2015): Ironically, this post has no call to action. Why? We migrated our site to a new design, and some elements were removed, including our shortcodes for CTA’s.  S’all good.

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